Ep 111 The Neuroscience of Sales Influence with Chuck Karvelas

Chuck Karvelas [00:00:00]: The moment you can start respecting people for who they are and seek to understand the world through their lens, you can start building stronger, trusting relationships. Hayley Parr [00:00:13]: This is Mental Selling, the sales podcast for people who are dedicated to making a difference in customers' lives. We're here to help you unlock sales talent, win more relationships, and transform your business with integrity. I'm your host, Hayley Parr. Let's get right into it. Welcome back to Mental Selling, the podcast where we dive deep into the human side of sales, what drives performance, what builds trust, and how mindset and behavior intersect to create true impact. I'm your host, Haley Parr, and today's episode is one you won't wanna miss. Our guest is someone who sits at the intersection of science and sales, Leadership and learning. As a longtime learning and development professional in the pharmaceutical space, Chuck Karvelas brings a unique perspective on how emotional intelligence, neuroscience, and a consultative mindset aren't just nice-to-haves, they're mission critical in the life sciences space. Whether it's enabling collaboration across research teams, driving innovation, or helping salespeople navigate complex regulated conversations with healthcare professionals, Chuck is passionate about developing people in ways that create lasting, measurable change. Chuck, welcome to the Mental Selling Podcast. It's so great to have you. Chuck Karvelas [00:01:34]: Thank you. It's a thrill to be here too, Hayley. I'm excited for our conversation. Hayley Parr [00:01:38]: I am so excited because this topic is one that I know very little about, so I'm incredibly curious. I'm going to learn a ton from you. I'm going to try and listen more than I speak and I'm just absolutely stoked to get started. So before we really dive into kind of the science and the strategy, I'd like to just get to know more about you for our listeners of Mental Selling. What kind of first drew you into this world of training and development in the pharmaceutical industry? Was there a defining moment or some kind of influence that really sparked your passion here? Chuck Karvelas [00:02:14]: Absolutely. My wife got pregnant and they needed to get a big boy job. That's how it started with me, with me in pharma, I was actually living, living in Chicago over 20 years ago, working, if you can believe it, as an actor. I was working in the theater and I ran a little theater program with my wife and some colleagues and we were plugging away, doing our thing and one of those great careers that feeds the soul, but sometimes not the family. So when we actually, after seven years of marriage, got pregnant, I needed to start thinking, what do I love about what I do and how can I apply that to something that could be maybe potentially a little more stable, more financially rewarding. So I started asking folks, listen, if you had someone who was really good at telling stories that like, to inspire people, enjoyed seeing people change due to the impact that I was having on them, what do you think I should do? And sales kept coming up, more consultative sales than anything else. And that's how I landed my first job in pharmaceuticals. And I had a great time. Chuck Karvelas [00:03:16]: I was really good at it, and I enjoyed the interactions. It started for me as I'm getting to have, you know, 10 great conversations a day to try to influence and impact people. My background in the arts, I have both a master's and a bachelor's in theater acting, specifically. And living in Chicago, I was blessed to work with some incredible improvisers. So I did a lot of work in the improv world. And what I found out was that if we can just really listen to each other and think through the mindset of what we call the yes and principle is to build on each other's ideas, right? You say something, I say something, we add. And what we end up with is this amazing conversation that drives us both forward, that we equally share with each other. So that's how I sort of started in sales, got successful, and was identified to go out into the world of pharma as a learning professional. Chuck Karvelas [00:04:12]: And I've spent, oh, gosh, over 20, almost 25 years in the industry, and a vast majority of that in learning in leadership. So what I have found is that if we're great listeners and we're all about trying to build on each other's ideas, it's incredible what you could do from a sales perspective, from an internal stakeholder perspective, and from an organizational perspective. That's really what drives me every day, is to put this idea of learning and listening into our everyday work. So, yeah, that's kind of what brought me here. Very creative sort of background into a. What's considered more of a professional world. Hayley Parr [00:04:49]: I mean, I'm in marketing. I absolutely love it. And I knew that about you because I knew your background. But I'm sure some of the listeners are surprised to see that tie between behavioral training and the sciences and the acting world. And I have to ask, before we go on, are there any big productions that you were a part of, some that really stand out in your memory or as your favorite? Chuck Karvelas [00:05:11]: Yeah, I'm. Very early in my career, I was blessed. One of my first shows I ever did in Chicago, I got to work with a famous Broadway team, including Stephen Sondheim, who everyone knows from Sweeney Todd and Into the woods, and he was doing a US production to sort of develop a show that was going to go to New York called Saturday Night. And I got to be in the cast and got to work with him and James Lapine and his entire orchestration team, Jonathan Tunick. It was amazing. To be sitting at a piano next to Stephen Sondheim was quite incredible. So, yeah, that's sort of a claim to fame for me. It's been a long time, though. It's been a long time. Hayley Parr [00:05:49]: So Saturday Night that turned into Saturday Night Live in New York City. Chuck Karvelas [00:05:52]: Oh, I wish. No, no, no. The name of the show was called Saturday Night, and it was the first show actually ever wrote that never was produced early in his career. And then a group of people in Chicago wanted to revitalize it, and he was a big fan of their small theater and gave them the permission. So I got to. To work with the entire Broadway orchestration team, and he came in for a day near the end. So I got to sit there on a. Next to a piano with Stephen Sondheim was pretty extraordinary, so yeah. Hayley Parr [00:06:23]: Well, I'm in the presence of fame over here. How exciting. Chuck Karvelas [00:06:29]: Thanks. Hayley Parr [00:06:30]: That's really cool. And I love the way you tied the skills that you developed in that role into what makes you so good at your job, because it makes a lot of sense, but it's not something that you would naturally draw those ties. And I'd love to learn a little bit more. Emotional intelligence is something that you and I have spoken a lot about, and it also is coming up in conversation quite a bit, you know, as we think about some of these kind of more uncertain times we're in. And what are those skills that really help you get to the root of a conversation when tensions are high? I imagine that happens quite a bit in the healthcare space. So how does EQ show up in those scientific or technical teams when the focus sometimes can be more on data and precision? Chuck Karvelas [00:07:14]: Yeah. Gosh, it's so important. And there's a fascinating study that came out a few years ago in Australia, following a thousand kids for 40 years. Wow. And it looked at the biggest predictor of financial success, and what it found was emotional intelligence was the number one thing that made kids more financially successful in their lives, which is fascinating. So I always say with people who are driven by data, start with data. And emotional intelligence definitely has a significant impact on someone's ability to be successful. Where I see the core of emotional intelligence is two things. Chuck Karvelas [00:07:54]: One, it shows an enormous amount of respect. If you want to create a culture of feedback, of giving, of trust, emotional intelligence is where you start. You know, this idea that if you can walk in someone else's shoes for a little while, you can appreciate what they're going through. And I think that's the beginning. The moment you can start respecting people for who they are and seek to understand the world through their lens, you can start building stronger, trusting relationships. And that's really where I think the greatest. Sales professionals, medical science liaisons, just even internal scientists working on teams together when they seek to understand the needs of others, that's where it starts. That's where great collaboration starts, is in that desire. Chuck Karvelas [00:08:50]: And I've seen it work and I've seen it not work with people who aren't ready to sort of, you know, Jesus, take the wheel, let other people lead the way and seek to understand their needs prior to sort of delivering information. And let's be honest Hayley, for a couple of decades there in the late 90s, early 2000s, the reputation of field based sales professionals in the pharma world wasn't the greatest, right? We had this arms race of big pharma companies sending tens of thousands of sales professionals out there doing what we would call show up, throw up, right? I'm here, this is my drug, this is why I'm here. I'm on my agenda and I'm here to tell you something and get out and do that 10 times a day with the right people. They saw growth. However, as our world evolved, information became much less valuable because I can Google it or I can do a DIY video or now patients can go on TikTok and hear the experiences of others. The idea of being a deliverer of information is over. It's now the time of someone seeking to understand the problems that customer may not even know they have. And being able to empathize, understand and recognize their needs and then be someone who partners with them to help support the needs they've identified. Chuck Karvelas [00:10:16]: And that's where I think EI is absolutely critical in what we do every day. Hayley Parr [00:10:21]: Absolutely. Well, and they're such human concepts too, right? Being able to listen and understand and empathize and help, you know, dig deep for the, the question behind the question to figure out what's actually going on. You mentioned you've seen it work and you've seen instances where it's not working at all. Do you have any specific stories you're willing to share with the mental selling listeners? Chuck Karvelas [00:10:45]: Yeah. Well, I can tell you this Is that no one wants to change. But if you truly listen to what someone's asking for or what their needs really are, and you're listening to help them build a solution for themselves, and hopefully you can support them in some way, either through the service or product that you're providing to them, it can be a huge impact. The one thing I would say specifically is around a launch that I just have recently done, and that launch was asking for a huge amount of change from a customer. People don't want to change unless they believe the pain of change will be less than the pain of staying the same. And where I saw EQ AI really help here was slowing people down. And when you launch a product, your first instinct from your marketing partners, from your sales leaders is get out there and give them everything that we've got. If you get five minutes, make sure you get that message out right. Chuck Karvelas [00:11:46]: And that isn't what was needed in this particular case because we were asking not only for them to think differently about the product they were choosing for this particular disease state, but also to rethink the disease state itself because of the mechanism of action that they were providing was different than what they were expecting from their currently used products. So we needed them to shift their mindset specifically, not just around plugging drug A for drug B, but also to think, wait a second, maybe there's a different way we should be looking at this disease that requires huge change. And to do that, you need to be able to create a relationship and trust with that customer before they're willing to make those significant amounts of change. So what we saw is that when we slowed down our effort and started digging into questions around their pain points, what they like, what they dislike, the struggles that they're having, the pain points of change, et cetera, that created such a different conversation and relationship starting off with the sales professionals. So we were able to actually move behavioral change in a shorter amount of time, if you can believe it. It seems counterintuitive, but in a shorter amount of time, by taking less time to talk about our product and spend more time trying to seek to understand their pain points and their needs. Hayley Parr [00:13:09]: I mean, that makes total sense, but it sounds like a very difficult thing to do. Chuck, how did you coach and train these people to get to that level to ask the right questions and go past their knee jerk reaction of how they would typically approach a similar launch? Chuck Karvelas [00:13:27]: First of all, it's. There's a great old song, Slow down, you're moving too fast, right? And that's why I think sometimes people, they just get out there and go. Want to go fast, and sometimes you need to slow down to speed up and just sort of getting them to understand why this approach has a bigger impact. So back to what I said a little earlier in our conversation. Start with the data. Because if people understand the why behind the approach, it makes it much easier for them to buy into it if they see that, that it's going to pay off. Chuck Karvelas [00:14:04]: So that's what we did. We spent a little bit of time talking about why this works, and it's been a lot of fun helping sales professionals, even the most seasoned sales professionals, say, wait a second. If I can be just a couple degrees better than I am right now, I could have even a more significant impact than I'm already having. Hayley Parr [00:14:22]: So it's kind of a mindset shift, right? We talk a lot about mindset at Integrity Solutions, but in your field, it's more like the neuroscience principles behind the behavior change. And I'm a parent of small children, and so I'm very interested in the neuroscience behind behavior change because there's a lot of behaviors I would like to influence. I guess we will say, tell me what works and what doesn't work. I want all the secrets in the next 10 minutes. Chuck Karvelas [00:14:51]: Well, listen, here's the thing. They aren't really secrets. This stuff's been out there for a thousand years around behavior. Aristotle actually first started talking about different types of people in our society and how the right levels of different people make society stronger or weaker, depending on how they define themselves and how they change behavior. And it really is. You nailed it. Mindset shift. And if my job as a learning professional is to help people do something better. Chuck Karvelas [00:15:21]: Right? Shifting a behavior, improving a behavior. That first starts with mindset, Hayley, right? Because, you know, I'm not here to help people think better. I'm here to help people change a behavior that starts with mindset. You first have to think about it, and then you have to do it. And that's really kind of what my job is, right? Changing behavior, changing mindset, changing habits. Chuck Karvelas [00:15:44]: So I said, okay, what's a habit? And I sort of backtracked and worked with partners to figure out, do you change habits? Do you break habits? What's neurologically happening in your brain? So one of the first things I put up in my training for engaging with customers is the picture of a neuron. And I say, what are you looking at? And most of my students in classes are very smart. They're like, oh, it's a neuron. It's a synapses, it's all that kind of stuff. But it actually, what it is, is it's the physical representation of a habit. Two neurons locked together, wrapped in what's called a myelin sheath. That myelin sheath is like a big wall protecting the importance of those neural connections. So the more you do something over and over and over, the thicker the walls around that neuron become. Chuck Karvelas [00:16:30]: That becomes a habit. Habits then become traits. Then you, Hayley, are recognized for those traits, right? Oh man, Hayley's really good. She's very organized. Then you get rewarded for those traits. Then those traits become the core parts of your personality. And then your personality is something that you want to continue to reinforce because it's all of your habits being positively rewarded. So then all of a sudden you have a certain way you approach life. Chuck Karvelas [00:16:59]: And then people say, oh, that Hayley, she does this, she does that, she does this and this. Okay? All habits start with a single step and then rewarded repetition over and over. And then that defines who you are. So my job really is to seek to understand and learn who our customers are, what's important to them, and then how do I adapt my approach neurologically to make them feel more comfortable and connected to me as a partner, as a salesperson, as a stakeholder, as a provider of information. Hayley Parr [00:17:32]: Hi there. If you're listening to this show, it means you believe in making a difference in your customers lives and are looking for tools to grow in your career at the same time. At Integrity Solutions, we're changing the stereotypes about sales training in ways your customers will feel and experience every day. If you want to learn more about how we could help you and your team, go to integritysolutions.com. Chuck Karvelas [00:17:59]: There's a great kind of story I like to tell that is about part of our brain called the amygdala. And I'm not sure if you're familiar with the amygdala, but this is where our fight flight freeze. Kind of part of our brain is way back in our gator brain. Okay? So if you are feeling unsafe and you're. That part of your brain kicks in, not your smart part of your brain up here in your prefrontal cortex way in the back, it's should I punch Chuck, should I run away from Chuck, or should I just pretend Chuck's not there? Okay? So think about how many times that you've been in an interaction with a stakeholder and they have thrown out an argument at you without even listening. Or they've said, I really don't have time for this, and they run away. Any salesperson who says they don't experience that is lying to us right now. Okay, Hayley, we see this every day. Chuck Karvelas [00:18:45]: I walk in the door thinking I'm bringing value right in the back of that doctor's brain. They're saying, do I like this person? Do I trust this person? Am I aware of this person? Who are they? What do they want from me? They want to sell something to me, run away, and they run away from us, right? Or they throw out some objection at the beginning of our conversation. I don't have time right now. Or I tried your product, and it wasn't covered. And the sales professional thinks, wow, I'm really engaging them. And they'll take that argument and run off and check with their access team or with the office staff, and they'll try to figure out and solve the problem. Chuck Karvelas [00:19:20]: And they'll come back a week later and say, Dr. Parr, I'm so excited that I solved your problem. And the doctor will say what? They'll say the thing about the patient who had the problem with the Hayley. They don't even remember why, because it wasn't a real argument. It was their amygdala pushing back, right? It's extraordinary. And it even happens with our kids. You were talking about our kids before. I didn't do that, you have to admit. Did you really do it? Yeah, I did it. Why did they do that? Because they were scared, right? Chuck Karvelas [00:19:51]: They were trying to protect themselves. So here's a fun thing for all our folks out there who think they're a great sales professional. When you walk in the door, you've got your iPad or your resource or whatever, you're walking towards that doctor. Okay? The same neurons that fired in a caveman 10,000 years ago when they ran into a bear on a path are the same neurons that are firing in the amygdala of a doctor in front of you. It's the same thing. So if you know that. If you know that, you don't you yet to have a trusting, strong relationship with a customer. Slow down, get to know them, build trust, build respect, understand what's most important to them, then sell through the lens that they've given you that will dramatically change the tone. Chuck Karvelas [00:20:41]: Because now when you walk in the door, they're going to say, “Hayley, she understands me. I like her.” And there are so many different cool things to explore. I'm a big fan of Robert Cialdini. He wrote a book called the Power of Influence, which talks a lot about the seven Most critical things that humans look for when they're looking to build trust, a relationship, and then be influenced. So I highly recommend that book. And I think a lot of the things I'm trying to do is say, how do we emotionally influence people? By providing them with data the way they like to receive it. So a lot of times people will take this and they'll be like, oh, Chuck, isn't it a little like, you know, persuasion's a bad word? So my challenge would be this if I was going to. Do you speak any other languages, Hayley, besides English? Hayley Parr [00:21:31]: Un poco espanol. Chuck Karvelas [00:21:33]: Poco espanol. Good. So I walk into an office and you are a Spanish speaker, and I start throwing up data on you in English. What would make more sense for me if I was approaching that customer when I was walking in the door? What would be the most obvious way to improve my ability to connect with that customer? Hayley Parr [00:21:54]: Would it be asking at the top about their preferred language? If they speak any other languages, that could really help. Chuck Karvelas [00:22:01]: But if you know that already, the easiest way to do that would be to bring a translator, right? Hi, I'm Chuck. This is what I have. I'm going to let Hayley, who speaks un poco espanol, explain to you. So I'm gonna bring. I'm gonna bring a translator, right? Because that's the best chance of being able to at least make a simple connection. That's the way I look at applying these principles of neuroscience is almost like a neurodiversity translator that I'm trying to create space with you that makes you feel more comfortable. Chuck Karvelas [00:22:35]: So my messaging, my questioning strategy, my engagement with you makes you feel more connected to me. And that's the way I try to present it to my folks that I'm training in the field. Hayley Parr [00:22:48]: And how are you discerning what's going to make someone more comfortable if you're in a very quick interaction? So that's something I really struggle to wrap my head around, is like, the people who are good at. It's almost like it's a sixth sense that others don't have. It's like, holy cow, how did you read the room in that way? Chuck Karvelas [00:23:06]: Yeah, it's. So the first thing we do is we teach them sort of the foundational neuroscience. Like, what's the science behind habits and personality? And then we layer into training the understanding of personality typing. There's a lot of different ways that you can do it, different programs that are out there, but it's all based on Jungian principles. So Carl Jung sort of taught us, right? That's what MBTI, TypeCoach, insights, discovery, discovery. They're all kind of strengths finders. They're all sort of built the same way, all based on Jungian principles. There are simple ways for you to very quickly identify different personality types and then you are able to adapt your style very quickly in your questioning strategy for example. Chuck Karvelas [00:23:50]: So if I walk in the door and you see that I use my hands a lot when I talk, that when you ask me a question, I tend to talk through my answers, you know, I'm extroverted. Okay? So I'm either extroverted and all business. I know you are extroverted all business or extroverted all people, right? So you're either a thinking extrovert or a feeling extrovert. So if you say, oh, yeah, that's really, really great, how do I get that done again? Just give me the three quick bullets, you know, very quickly, based on your first couple of questions, what to look for that person, you're going to want to engage them, give them simple responses, talk a lot about competition, goals, things like that. Now if you say, you know, how do you treat X, Y and Z? And they say, well, let me tell you a story about a patient. This patient was so upset, you're like, oh, extroverted storyteller, extroverted feeler. Chuck Karvelas [00:24:44]: So then you want to talk about people, you want to get them involved, tell me how I could help. It's all about focused on people and feelings. Now if I ask you a question, Hayley, and you go, it's a great question. Before I answer, let me ask a couple clarifiers. This is an introverted person, right? So this is a person who wants to think before they speak. That's another very easy way to identify. They also usually are more formal and physical. They're more stoic in their body language. Chuck Karvelas [00:25:12]: And then once again, it's about thinker, feeler. Is this someone who's a process driven person in my first couple of questions, or is this someone who's all about people? So if they are an introverted feeler you want to address and talk about, how do you help people? How are you supporting your patients? How does your staff struggle with X, Y and Z? It's all through the lens of people. If you can figure out if they're extroverted or introverted in a thinker or a feeler, you're already able to quickly adjust your approach to questioning strategy and how you deliver data. Hayley Parr [00:25:41]: Yeah, and with integrity Solutions, we have behavior Styles. And I can see how all of those situations fall within one of the four quadrants. Are you a talker, Chuck? Chuck Karvelas [00:25:51]: No. Yes. Hayley Parr [00:25:53]: Nailed it. Chuck Karvelas [00:25:53]: So I am, I'm, I'm an extroverted feeler type person. So yeah, a lot of yellow, bright yellow energy pours off me all the time. Hayley Parr [00:26:01]: I can see it, I can see it through the screen. So this conversation has my brain just spinning. And I can see even in my day to day, how I can kind of move through the world slightly differently and just help improve relationships, improve conversations, not to mention the impacts to a sales conversation or situation you're in. But I'd like to hear of all the principles that we've talked about today, if you could apply, or maybe you probably already are one of these two, like a personal hobby or a passion outside of work, what would it be and how would it change the way you approach things? Chuck Karvelas [00:26:39]: Yeah. Gosh, such a great question. One thing that really defines who I am on a daily basis is I'm the father of son who struggles with asd, with autism. And it has made me a better professional, a better business partner, a better leader. I strive to be a better dad every single day. And what I've realized is that having a son with autism, it creates more awareness, more respect, more openness to neurodiversity than ever before. And it's fascinating because I'm someone who's made a wonderfully successful life in career out of being a human to human interactor, I guess if I'm creating a fake word there, but like I really thrive. I live on human interaction and it's sort of the core of my career. Chuck Karvelas [00:27:33]: And to have someone who doesn't even have an awareness of the importance of that in their lives has been such a challenge for me. So when I would say that what all this work has kind of done for me is it's given me such a deep respect for people who think and act differently. And that is such at the core of what I believe great sales professionals, great as human beings in general, can really be thinking about is how is the person across from me different? What's important to them? What do I need to learn about them as an individual before I try to implant or you know, push things onto them. I know people have quoted a whole bunch of different folks in history about saying this, but this idea of, you know, God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason, right? Because we should listen twice as much. That's what I really think about on a day to day basis is If I was talking to my son, how would I adjust my approach? It's very different. Every human being has a level of difference between us, and it's exciting for us to try to explore and find out what's most important to them and then provide value that aligns to that. Hayley Parr [00:28:47]: That's an absolutely fantastic closer. Just embracing the differences that make us all human and using what we know to move throughout the world in a more harmonious way. That's so cool, Chuck. I really appreciate you sharing that. That's really awesome. Anything else? Any final thoughts or plugs? Anything you're up to? Words of wisdom you want to share with the Mental Selling podcast audience? Chuck Karvelas [00:29:10]: Words of wisdom. Yeah. I'll say it again. Slow down. I think we're all moving so fast that really, really slow down. Another thing that I would highly recommend, it's something I struggle with every day, is be present. When you're present, the last thing in the world you want to be is someone who's not there for that person across from them in that moment. So take your time to really, really listen. You'll be amazed at what you can find out by just being present on that moment and listening. Hayley Parr [00:29:39]: Absolutely. It's been a crazy week, and I needed that going into this weekend. The reminder to slow down and that it's okay to do so. Chuck, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for joining the pod. Chuck Karvelas [00:29:50]: Oh, thank you so much for having me, and for your Mental Selling folks out there, go get them. Hayley Parr [00:29:55]: Absolutely. Thanks. Hayley Parr [00:29:58]: Thank you for joining us on Mental Selling. If today's conversation resonated with you, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network. For more insights on how to go beyond winning deals and build real customer relationships, visit integritysolutions.com. See you next time.